CPJ calls for independent probe of Aleh Byabenin's death

New York, December 3, 2010--The Committee to Protect
Journalists is concerned that Belarusian prosecutors have closed their investigation
into the September death of Aleh Byabenin, founder and director of the
Minsk-based, pro-opposition news website Charter 97. Authorities said Wednesday
that they did not find evidence of foul play.

Byabenin's brother found the journalist hanged in a stairway
of his summer house outside the capital on September 3, Natalya Radina, editor
of Charter 97, told CPJ at the time. A
day earlier, Byabenin had made plans with friends to go to the movies, but
failed to show up at the theater, Radina said. After friends tried to call him,
they received a text message from his phone that said he was driving to his
summer house and would not respond to calls. He had also made plans for
September 3, to watch a soccer game with friends, and September 4, to go
fishing, according to the news website Naviny.
Byabenin left no suicide note.

"We call for a renewed and independent investigation into
the death of our colleague Aleh Byabenin," CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program
Coordinator Nina Ognianova said.
"There are too many unanswered questions and omissions of evidence in the
official probe. The government must allow outside experts to conduct the
inquiry."

In an official autopsy report released to his family on
September 4, authorities said Byabenin, 36, had committed suicide. But the
journalist's colleagues and friends immediately disputed that account. Byabenin
had no apparent motive to kill himself, his colleagues told CPJ. He was in
excellent health, had no debts, and had just returned from an overseas family
vacation. Dmitry Bandarenko, a friend who saw Byabenin's body, told CPJ that
the journalist's right ankle was badly wrenched and that he had bruises on his
left hand, chest, and back. The official autopsy report did not include those
details, Charter97 reported.

Under public pressure, prosecutors announced in
mid-September that they would reopen the investigation.

Many of Byabenin's colleagues published stories questioning
the suicide finding, which prompted a series of anonymous death threats.
Svetlana Kalinkina, editor of the opposition daily Narodnaya Volya and a 2004 recipient of CPJ's International Press
Freedom Award, received an anonymous letter on September 6 that said: "A hunt
for traitors has started. One more article and we will finish you."

Three days after publishing a blog entry in which he
detailed inconsistencies in the official probe, freelancer Nikolai Khalezin
started receiving death threats. "You could disappear one night," one person posted
to his blog. "Or, sometimes, trucks' brakes don't work so well." Radina of Charter 97 received a series of threats in
comments posted on the website. One, posted on September 13, said: "A noose for
Radina."

All of the threats have gone uninvestigated, journalists
said.

On November 23, the Vienna-based Organization for Security
and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) announced that two unnamed
experts had concluded that Byabenin's death was indeed a suicide. The OSCE said
the experts were deployed after the organization received an invitation from Belarusian officials. The OSCE emphasized
that the experts had not been given a mandate to conduct their own
investigation from scratch; they simply reviewed materials compiled during the official
Belarusian probe. Byabenin's body was not exhumed.

Charter97
often reports on government wrongdoing, including human rights abuses,
corruption in the security services, and opposition activities. The website has
had frequent brushes with authorities, including interrogations of staff
members, confiscation of equipment, and debilitating cyber attacks.

Presidential elections in Belarus are due in early 2011. Bandarenko
told CPJ that Byabenin had recently agreed to become involved with the pending
election campaign of opposition candidate Andrei Sannikov.